And so on...

"..."

What does this really mean? To us, it means that whatever came before in a sequence, should just repeat itself throughout. For example, 1, 2, 3, 4... We are suppose to interpret this (as humans should) that the next logical number should be n + 1, where n represents the last number in the sequence. Hofstadter brings this notion up in the section entitled "On Deciphering Shorter versus Longer Messages," as well as in an earlier part of the chapter. My question is, do we as humans really know what comes next in any type of sequence, whether it be numbers or language? Could this just be another case of rule following, or another case of heuristics?

Hofstadter brings up another key point on page 68, when he is talking about a "message" being too long or too short. If it is too long, we can get easily confused by trying to deal with too much information, and if it is too short, we may not have enough evidence to make any sort of conclusion on how the sequence should continue on. So, Hofstadter talks about analogy-making, and how AI models of this nature, are created in such a way that the "blurriness" of a sequence is taken away, and certain set constraints are put in place.

I'll leave with a quote:

"The slow one now
Will later be fast
As the present now
Will later be past
The order is
Rapidly fadin'.
And the first one now
Will later be last
For the times they are a-changin'."

Bob Dylan


-Bryan